


The Art of Texting

by thatmitchsentho



Series: Do Me A Favor [2]
Category: Pitch Perfect
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 16:11:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8020468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatmitchsentho/pseuds/thatmitchsentho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Beca Mitchell, famous songwriter and producer, met Aubrey Posen, former lawyer now teacher, in a bar. After hitting it off, they're both nervous about what comes next. Their schedules aren't quite lining up, but Beca has a proposition, and it all depends on how well she texts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Texting

Beca was staring at her phone. Hard. Like the sheer effort she was projecting in her stare was going to will it to buzz. But it didn't. It just stayed there, silent and motionless.

"She thinks I'm a stalker," she sighed. Stacie rolled her eyes from the other side of her desk.

"Calm down," she said. "You're forgetting something."

"What?" Beca said. "She said call her sometime, I texted her and she's ignoring me." The 'her' in question was a woman Beca had met in a bar the previous weekend. All of Beca's friends had been pressuring her to pick up a girl, so she'd sat down next to Aubrey. Beautiful, intelligent, easy to talk to Aubrey. The plan hadn't been to bed her, it had been to throw her friends off. She'd asked Aubrey if she'd mind if she sat next to her for a while, indulge in a little chit chat and then slide her a fake number. But the talk had been good, and the number had been real, and accompanied with a note that said she should call her. She didn't call, but she did send a text. Short, simple.

_Hey it's Beca Mitchell. Had a great time talking to you the other night, we should do that again. Minus the extras._

"Okay, you didn't learn a great deal about Aubrey," Stacie said. "But you did learn what she does for a living."

"Yeah, she's a teacher."

"And what fucking time is it?" Stacie said. Beca checked her watch.

"It's ten fifteen."

"That's right," she said. "She's a teacher, and it's ten fifteen on a Monday. Which means she's probably in class and she doesn't have the luxury of being able to whip her phone out and text the hottie she met in the bar." Beca relaxed a little.

"You're right," she said. "But she will text me, back right?"

"You like her," Stacie said in recognition. "Like, really."

"Yeah," Beca admitted. "You saw her. She's…"

"Hot?" Stacie offered.

"So fucking hot," Beca corrected. "She's gorgeous. And it was… she was easy to talk to you, you know? Interesting. She's definitely the kind of person I'd want to see again. A lot. So I'm a little flustered here, okay?"

"You must be serious," Stacie said. "It's been a while since you've shown interest in someone, Beca."

"I know," Beca said. "I don't want to fuck this up if it could be a thing. And it felt like we had a spark at least and I wanna see where it goes."

"I'm not going to give you shit," Stacie said. "I know the others will. I just want you to be happy, you know that right?"

"Yeah, I know," Beca said. "Let's go and get a cup of coffee so I can pretend not to be staring at my phone every five seconds." Stacie nodded and they headed out.

Beca was lost in her work when her phone finally did indicate a return message. But she snapped out of her zone and picked it up. Seeing the blonde's name on her screen made her heart beat just a little faster.

_I had fun, too. And I'd love to see you again, what did you have in mind?_

Beca grinned at her phone. She texted back that she'd like to take her to dinner if she was free sometime during the week.

_Believe me, I'd love to. But I actually have parent teacher conferences every night until Friday._

Beca frowned. She was due to fly to LA Friday morning, and she'd be there for two weeks. This was not looking good.

_Uh oh. The universe hates us. I fly to LA for two weeks on Friday._

As soon as she hit send, a stroke of brilliance hit her.

_Actually, what are you doing Saturday week?_

There was a slight delay in the response this time, but it still came.

_Nothing, but you're in LA?_

Beca took a deep breath. This was a big gamble.

_Come to LA. I'll fly you out. Get you a hotel room - your own, I'm not presumptuous. I have a thing, and you should come. I'm sure you'd make it ten times more interesting._

Beca was surprised when instead of getting a text in return, her phone simply rang. She picked it up. "Hello?"

"Hi," came the other woman's voice. "You want me to fly to LA to attend some function with you and we don't even know each other? That's… ballsy. And forward."

"Probably," Beca said. "And I get why you'd be worried. So here's my plan. We've got just under two weeks before this thing actually happens. During this time, you can text or call and ask me whatever you want and I'll answer it. If it gets to the Friday before and you still aren't sure, then that's fine, we can wait and do dinner when I get back. But if we get to the Friday before and you like what you hear, you'll let me fly you out." There was a long pause, Beca assuming that she was thinking the proposal over.

"What's the dress code?" Aubrey asked.

"If you've got something in an edgy cocktail, that'd work," Beca said. "So the plan is a go?"

"We can text," she said. "I'm willing to give this a shot." Beca let out a sigh of relief.

"I'm glad you said that," she said.

"I hate to cut it short," Aubrey replied, "but my next class starts in less than ten minutes and I have needed to pee since nine am."

"You go do that," Beca said. "Though I must say I'm glad to hear that I rank above your pressing need to relieve yourself."

"Text me," Aubrey said, and hung up before hurrying to the restroom. Before she returned to her classroom, she felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and smiled.

The first few texts between them covered the basics. Birthdays, favorite colors and foods. Family members and friends. Then Beca had started a round of either/or. There were some similarities and some differences. They both preferred dogs (Beca vehemently argued that cats were Satan incarnate after retelling a childhood story that ended in anaphylactic shock), and both much preferred television to movies. Beca argued movies were too long and rarely interesting and Aubrey tended to agree. But Aubrey loved sushi where Beca couldn't think of anything she'd want to eat less, Beca was a football fan and Aubrey preferred baseball if she had to pick a sport.

But there was plenty for them to talk about. Aubrey left little messages after her parent teacher conferences saying things like "this kids' mom wants to know if I think it's completely necessary for her child to complete coursework in order to pass my class" or "DAD IS HITTING ON ME SEND HELP". They made Beca laugh and she actually enjoyed the funny side of Aubrey. Beca texted her photos of studio life - a selfie with Katy Perry, the mixing board covered with masking tape that had writing all over it, and the amassed collection of coffee cups by days end.

Beca flew out to LA on Friday morning and had checked in with the blonde to let her know she'd arrived safely. Their messages back and forth had gotten a little more serious. Aubrey had gotten home after work to see her phone lit up with a text that said "Why did you go into law if you never wanted to?" She studied the phone for a moment. This was a bigger question than she felt like dealing with by text. She took a deep breath and dialed.

"Hello?" came the brunette's voice. "Aubrey?"

"Yeah," Aubrey said. "I uh, got your text. That question's probably worth a phone call."

"Oh," Beca said. "If it's too soon for heavy duty you don't have to answer."

"No, it's okay," Aubrey said. "Uh, remember when I told you I'm not close with my family any more?"

"Yeah, you said Chloe was your family," Beca said. "I can get behind that."

"They're the reason I went into law," Aubrey said. "It was pretty much the only acceptable career path for someone in my family. There were no other options. I was groomed for it, basically."

"Groomed?"

"As soon as I hit middle school I spent summers interning at my dad's law firm, making copies, running errands. By the time I was in high school it was doing actual legal research, compiling data. And I never wanted it, not for a second."

"So why not just declare your major as education?" Beca asked.

"I couldn't afford to not have my dad's financial support," Aubrey said. "I'd never held any kind of job that could be useful in supporting me, all I knew was law. So I minored in education, claiming that my college required a more diverse basis for degrees. My father almost pulled me out of school, calling it a crappy liberal brainwashing tank, but I still got the law degree. After that it was law school. Chloe helped me get my teaching accreditation at the same time. She's been everything to me."

"It makes me sound gutless, I know," Aubrey said, "But I was afraid of my dad. Of what it would do to him when I turned my back on the family."

"Your dad sounds pretty intense," Beca said. "I'm sorry that it's been so hard for you."

"Then I went to work in a law firm. Corporate law. Defending the actual scum of the earth, covering up truly horrifying things in court. And I really couldn't live with myself any more. I ended up snapping at family Christmas."

"Damn," Beca said. "How'd that go?"

"I basically told my family that they were ruthless, immoral assholes who'd built their fortune doing unspeakably horrible things under the pretense of protecting Americans when all they cared about was lining their wallets," Aubrey sighed. "That was it, I was cut off, excommunicated immediately. And I don't actually care one bit. I came out here to New York, updated my teachers credentials so I could work out here."

"I'm glad that you're happy now," Beca said. "Family is so much bigger than sharing blood, you know?"

"What about your family? You intimated that you guys weren't close," Aubrey said.

"By not close I actually meant estranged completely from my father," Beca said. "Like your dad, he had pretty specific plans for my career, and famous songwriter and producer was nowhere near that plan."

"Your father isn't proud of what you've achieved?" Aubrey said. "You're at the literal pinnacle of your industry."

"Yeah, the second he heard I applied to a music based college instead of an Ivy League or a solid business school, we were done. Did you know that I'm a talentless hack with no chance at succeeding with my cute little hobby?" Beca said.

"Wow," Aubrey said. "What about your mom?" There was a long silence, but she could hear Beca breathing.

"Uh, she died when I was thirteen," Beca said. "It's been a long time, but I miss her every fucking day."

"I'm sorry, Beca," she said genuinely.

"She would have supported me," Beca said. "But it's okay."

They kept chatting for a little while, before Beca admitted she was actually running late and had to be somewhere. Aubrey had scolded her, saying that she could have hung up. But Beca had countered saying that she actually liked talking to her, making the blonde's insides churn in a pleasant way. They ended the call with promises to keep texting and calling the next day.

Aubrey had dinner with Chloe on Tuesday, and spent the evening discussing whether or not she was going to meet Beca in LA. Chloe was all for it. She argued that Aubrey had lived her life playing it safe and following rules and she'd hated every minute of it. The fact of the matter was that the only things she'd ever done in her life she truly felt happy with were spur of the moment or following her gut.

"So what does your gut tell you?" Chloe said. "You've been talking to her for over a solid week."

"I think… I think I want to do it," Aubrey said. "When I met her in that bar, she left this impression. I can't really explain it. It wasn't supposed to be anything, but I kind of wanted her to stay. And it's not like I know nothing about her, we've talked a lot. I've told her about my family. She's told me about hers."

"And there are no warning bells?" Chloe said.

"No," Aubrey said. "What do you think?"

"Well… I don't want you to kill me for this," she said. "But I did some Google detective work."

"Chloe," she sighed.

"I just wanted to make sure that there wasn't anything hinky going on with her exes or anything," Chloe said. "And it's good news. She's not a serial dater, not a womanizer. She's had two girlfriends in eight years and both of them seem to still say great things about her."

"Who were the girlfriends?"

"Model friends," Chloe said.

"Great," Aubrey huffed. "She dates models."

"Please, you're gorgeous," Chloe said. "Plus, she likes you. Established fact." Aubrey just sat for a moment.

"Okay," she said. "Yes. I'm going to do it. There's no reason not to. She was clear. I'd go out there, we'd stay in separate hotel rooms. And if anything feels off, I'll just bail." Chloe almost squealed with happiness.

"That's awesome," Chloe said. "Are you going to call her and tell her?"

"When I get home," Aubrey said. They finished off their dinner and went their separate ways. After Aubrey changed into her pajamas and organized her bag for the next day, she settled in bed and texted Beca.

_You free?_

_10 mins_

She waited and read a few pages in her current book. It wasn't overly thrilling, she wasn't sure if she'd make it the whole way through.

_Sorry about that. Still there?_

_Of course. How was your day?_

_Boring. Just grabbing something to eat. Yours?_

_Had dinner with Chloe. And we talked about you._ At that message, her phone rang immediately.

"Talking about me?" Beca said. "I thought my ears were burning, now that you mention it."

"We were discussing this weekend," Aubrey said. "And I don't have to wait until Friday. I would like to come out to LA and see you."

"Serious? Awesome," Beca said. "That's really awesome. I'm glad you're coming out."

"Me too," she said. "So are you going to tell me what the thing is?"

"It's a fundraising thing," Beca said. "You've heard of the Trevor Project?"

"Of course I have," she said.

"Trevor Live LA," she said. "It's a big thing."

"Yeah, I've heard of it," Aubrey said. "You sure?"

"Of course," Beca said. "Look it's probably not the ideal first date, I admit that. But if you're uncomfortable with the fact that there is gonna be cameras, we can just play it off as friends instead of a date."

"Um… Okay," she said. "Let's play it by ear. I'm still coming out there."

"Great," Beca said. "And I meant what I said, this is on me. I'll arrange the hotel room, the flights, and a car to pick you up and drop you off."

"I can get myself to the airport," Aubrey said.

"No, a promise is a promise," Beca said. "If you send me your email address I'll send you the plane ticket. What time would suit you?"

"I tend to get in after school at about four," Aubrey said. "And I'll pack beforehand."

"Okay," Beca said. "I'll book some stuff and let you know details."

"Looking forward to it," Aubrey said.

"Yeah, me too," Beca said. "I'll let you go, get some sleep." Aubrey hung up and immediately began thinking about the weekend to come.


End file.
